A limited constitutional government calls for a rules-based, freemarket monetary system, not the topsy-turvy fiat dollar that now exists under central banking. This issue of the Cato Journal examines the case for alternatives to central banking and the reforms needed to move toward free-market money.

The more widespread use of body cameras will make it easier for the American public to better understand how police officers do their jobs and under what circumstances they feel that it is necessary to resort to deadly force.

Americans are finally enjoying an improving economy after years of recession and slow growth. The unemployment rate is dropping, the economy is expanding, and public confidence is rising. Surely our economic crisis is behind us. Or is it? In Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis, Cato scholar Michael D. Tanner examines the growing national debt and its dire implications for our future and explains why a looming financial meltdown may be far worse than anyone expects.

The Cato Institute has released its 2014 Annual Report, which documents a dynamic year of growth and productivity. “Libertarianism is not just a framework for utopia,” Cato’s David Boaz writes in his book, The Libertarian Mind. “It is the indispensable framework for the future.” And as the new report demonstrates, the Cato Institute, thanks largely to the generosity of our Sponsors, is leading the charge to apply this framework across the policy spectrum.

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A Silver Lining in the Housing Crisis

Market downturns are rarely pretty. People get hurt. From February of last year to February of this year, the median price of existing American homes plunged almost 9%, the biggest dip in recent memory. Some people, especially those who signed up for adjustable rate mortgages, are struggling to make payments and will have to sell at a loss or face foreclosure.

But for all the gloom, there is a bright side. For one thing, the current slide will have no adverse effect on most homeowners. They’re in it for the long haul. It’s not like the downstairs half-bath disappears when house values slip. And most folks who bought houses only a couple years back are still sitting pretty, since the run-up in values prior to the current malaise was so long and so sharp.

So far, the housing slump has taken the largest toll on speculators who hoped to turn a quick profit. It has also hit banks and mortgage companies that wrote loans to con men. They gambled and lost. But the large majority of Americans who took on sub-prime mortgages weren’t gambling — even though some would have you believe that subprime is a dirty word. New flexibility in credit standards really did help many thousands of families into homes. And most are now doing just fine with their payments. For them, too, all this will pass, like a bout of indigestion.

While we so fretfully tote up losses, it’s easy to forget that there are winners in a down market: homebuyers.

Housing is becoming more affordable again. For everyone who sells a house at big loss, there is a buyer who gains from the lower price. In the grand accounting, these gains count just as much as the losses. We ought to keep that in mind as Congress considers mortgage assistance legislation. What may seem like public-spirited benevolence to people struggling to keep their houses can seem like a tax to people struggling to buy one.